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Posts Tagged ‘Columnists’

Perth’s whitebread, western suburbs media is a problem. The homogenous viewpoint, particularly in the I’m-so-young-and-cool-I-don’t-need-to-think-for-myself genre. Maybe they think appealing to the masses means writing like the masses (I’m so individual, just like you.)

(NB In Perth Western Suburbs equals Eastern Suburbs in the east, if you catch my drift).

There’ll be no singling anyone out because it’s across the board in mainstream media, even in sections of the street press, but the launch of Fairfax’s WA Today underlined the problem.

Remember: There might be a boom but a lot of people are hurting now, they’re not flipping from your column to the share prices, they’re not making a killing from their investment property and they don’t give a flying whatever that airfares to Mauritius are escalating. But the great unwashed do have good stories to tell and they like to read / hear good stories told well.

Some solutions:

Media owners, editors: Allow your writers some latitude. Even polarising columns / think pieces / colour stories / features are better than BLAND. Or same-same. Or deja vu. Here’s a thought: What about hiring staff who have really lived – not lived backbacking to Tierra del Fuego but lived hand-to-mouth, who had to put in an effort to pay for school or uni, who aren’t offended by Rockingham or Geraldton or Ramadan or poverty or imperfection. Get some diversity up ya.

Writers: Read. Put down the moleskine you’ve taken to the wine bar, really listen and don’t try to make the scene fit the story you think you want to write.

Readers: Dump the mags / sites / papers / radio shows that offend – or don’t offend when they should be challenging us.

Wannabe scribes, get in touch with the issues that worry the masses at Worst of Perth.